September, 2011


13
Sep 11

Busy week

Even my deadlines have deadlines. And those deadlines aren’t very patient. So things will be brief. Very brief.

Class today, based on the same lecture I taught to another section last week. The laughs weren’t there this time. And some of the jokes were even better! It happens. Small group dynamics are interesting things. Maybe they’ll find the next class more to their liking.

Saw this on the morning drive:

octagon

Some octagons get all the luck. Some just get to see all the sites. Good thing it picked up the truck. Those many flat sides to an octagon make rolling around a difficult proposition.

Geometry puns! Free of charge!

Updated a page I wrote in July. Last winter I did a piece on Dean Hallmark, Texas boy turned Auburn man turned World War II hero and prisoner of war. I’ve been corresponding with his fourth-cousin, the family historian. Last month he and I had the chance to meet in person. Today he sent me an email containing the update. Interesting echoes from the 1930s.

That’s enough for now. Back to newspapering.


13
Sep 11

Things to read

Hey kids, gather round and let the Boston Globe tell you how they built an all-in-one website. This is a useful approach because, as you know, we are all approaching the Web in our own way, which means the experience is a little better different for you on your laptop than my on my iPhone or the next person on their pad.

Why is this important? Mobile consumption is about to surpass the tied-to-your-desk variety. The current watchdate is 2015.

The year 2015 is when Back to the Future II takes place, too. Just so you know.

What will people be doing online? A little bit of a lot of things, but mostly social media if current trends hold. A lot of news spreads via social networks at this point, so that’s not entirely a bad thing.

There’s also niche news sites, which are becoming a growing field.

Everyone’s friend Andy Carvin, on how he balances the job and his valuable role live-tweeting the Arab world. Sanity is a word that appears in the headline, so that’s something to keep in mind.


13
Sep 11

Catember, Day 13

Catember


12
Sep 11

It was either the quilt or Microsoft Word

Oh the things you can get done on a Monday!

Set some hours. Wrote a lot of emails. Volunteered myself onto a panel. Worked on my car. Read and tinkered with two papers. Watched some television. Washed my car. Vacuumed the floor mats.

The floor mats, people.

Sure, when you throw it down into one fast list it doesn’t seem like much, but there’s some heft to that list.

At least three of those things involved Microsoft Word, after all.

And since you’re not interested in any of those things in the slightest, have some pictures. I found this quilt hanging at the city library yesterday:

quilt

The quilt was sponsored by American Field Service of Auburn, which now has a different name, I believe, but is a youth organization. Each panel is a little bit of the local history — and judging by the content, somewhere from the mid-late 1970s — so this safely fits into the realm of folk art. Here’s Old Main:

OldMain

Old Main, built in 1859, was the first building on Auburn’s campus. Classes were held there. It served as a hospital during the Civil War (when the university was closed). It was destroyed by fire in 1887 and replaced by the iconic Samford Hall.

Here’s the lathe, which has now remarkably been mentioned here twice in the span of eight days:

Lathe

Built in Selma, Ala. during the early part of the Civil War it was intended to make military supplies for the Confederates. They tried to move it to Georgia to keep it from being captured, and it was ultimately buried in Irondale, near modern Birmingham. It later was moved to Columbus, Ga. and worked through the end of the war boring cannons. After the war it was used in the coal iron industry. In the 1950s it was presented to Auburn. Also, the legend goes, if you stand in front of it under a full moon and say some random thing or another it will move three times and make all your dreams come true. Or something.

People don’t talk about it much anymore, I guess most everyone who can relate to it are all gone now, but the rail depot was a vital part of the community. It even figures into the football lore. The depot still stands. It was a realty office for three decades after the trains stopped rumbling through. Now it is empty and is considered a state sight in peril.

Depot

Reading that link you’ll learn it was the third one in town, designed by a student in 1904. The last passenger ticket was sold in 1970. Here it is today.


12
Sep 11

Catember, Day 12

Catember